Geschichte der Göttinger Universitäts-Bibliothek by Karl Julius Hartmann; Hans FuchselReview by: Henry Bartlett Van HoesenThe Library Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Jan., 1938), pp. 143-146Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4302443 .

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REVIEWS I43

The term "periodical" probably could not be defined too closely by the compilers. The Preface remarks that "certain publications of doubtful value and others which may be considered outside the scope of a catalogue of 'period- icals' have been included because the libraries possessing them have entered them as 'periodicals' in their own catalogues. Many such entries have, how- ever, been excluded." Proceedings, transactions, reports, yearbooks, mono- graphs, studies-as well as "periodicals" in the narrower (American) sense- are all included together. It makes a tremendously useful reference work.

The list of "Library symbols" occupies two inside pages, immediately pre- ceding the main list. Possibly the printing of this on the inside front cover or flyleaf would make it more easily accessible.

The entries under "Bulletin" number 398, occupying ten and one-half pages of text; under "Journal" are 349 entries, occupying eleven pages; under "Transactions" are '23o entries in seven and a half pages. League of Nations "periodicals" are cross-referenced under the League entry to the main entries in various parts of the alphabet. The American user, and many an American cataloger, may object to this strictly alphabetic entry of title as born by the periodical concerned. But the user of the periodical catalog in the British Museum, or of this Union catalogue, soon becomes accustomed to the arrange- ment and remembers with thanks the careful, systematic, and resourceful formulation of immense stores of information and reference.

WILLIS KERR Claremont Colleges Library

Claremont, California

Geschichte der Gottinger Universitdts-Bibliothek. Herausgegeben vlon KARL JULIUS HARTMANN und HANS FUCHSEL. G6ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1937. PP. 33I. Rm. geheft., IS; geb. in Leinen, I7; Ausland- spreis, Rm. II.25; 12.75.

The history of the library of the University of Gottingen cannot fail to be of general interest to librarians. For two hundred years the library itself, to say nothing of the university, has been first or among the foremost of Ger- man university libraries, and its librarians have been famous both in library work and in special fields of scholarship.

The library was founded by the House of Hannover, and its first Kurator and illustrissimus Maecenas was the Baron Gerlach Adolf, Freiherr von Miinchhausen, whose interest and generosity were unstinting up to the time of his death in I770. For his background, and for that of library development in general, the authors of this book quote two famous Hannover librarians, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (I646-I7I6) and Johann Daniel Gruber (I686- 1748). According to Leibniz, the objective of a library was "dass der einzelne Gelehrte sich bequem und leicht iuber die Summe der Forschungsergebnisse seiner Vorganger unterrichten k6nnte .... . Er nannte sie ein Generalinventar,

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x144 THE LIBRARY QUARTERLY

eine Enzyklopadie, ein Magazin aller Wissenschaften, einen zwar stummen, doch pansophischen Lehrer." One is tempted to underscore einzelne and be- quem as representing fundamental principles which have been too often for- gotten under the stress of large numbers of users and limited means. These principles were so much a part of the G6ttingen tradition, however, that until I 874 the open-access (but properly policed) Biuchersale held their own against the introduction of reading-room and closed Magazin.

The late seventeenth and early eighteenth century was a Zeitalter des Curieux. The gift of the library of J. H. Freiherr von Billow ("quidquid est in unoquoque genera vel magnum vel praestans vel rarum"), together with some 2,I00 duplicates from the library at Hannover and the absorption of the Gymnasium library at G6ttingen, brought the library to the number of 12,ooo volumes, as early as 1735. Miinchhausen reported to London, "in Teutschland keine Universitat ist. . . mit einer so nombreusen und selecten Bibliothec." At the end of Gesner's librarianship it numbered about 50,ooo; about the year i8oo, at the height of its prestige under Heyne, over I50,000;

fifty years later, under "Hoeck and Schweiger," nearly 250,000; in I883, under Wilmanns, 403,342, and now nearly a million. The progress was dis- continuous and interrupted: there was the Seven Years War, the regime of the Westphalian kingdom in the Napoleonic era (at this time numerous other libraries were united with the Gottingen, later to be separated again and returned to their former places), and the union of Germany under Prussia (which involved for a time unfavorable discrimination in the government support). There were variations also in the energy and success of the librar- ian and Kommission in obtaining support for the library.

Individual gifts, though significant, never formed so large a part of the acquisitions as in American universities-at any rate, the reader is spared the long enumerations that would be involved in doing justice to the donors in an American institution. Depository copies of new books and exchanges became more and more considerable in the latter part of the nineteenth century, particularly under Wilmanns (I875-85).

An account in considerable detail is given of the vicissitudes of the budget from year to year, of the changes in personnel with the resulting harmonies and conflicts of a great variety of personalities, of the varying composition and functions of the library Kommission (i 8 I4 ), of the different procedures in book purchases at home and abroad, of the making of a new Realkatalog (in the course of seventy years!), and of other matters of innere Ordnung. One may be surprised at the tardiness with which the Leipzig bookfairs entered into the scheme of things at G6ttingen, but the experiences with booksellers will not be all unfamiliar, even to the present generation. Particularly familiar is the growing burden on the budget of periodicals and continuations and the struggle to fill in broken files of canceled subscriptions. One would like to know more of the practicability or impracticability of the scheme of special-

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REVIEWS 145

ization urged by the Prussian minister of education, Friedrich Althoff, and followed during Pietschmann's regime ( 903-2 ). This scheme is of particular interest as regards G6ttingen's concern with the Anglo-American field (Ameri- can purchases began as early as 1791), in which an endowment by J. P. Morgan greatly assisted. In the matter of book selection, it is interesting to read that the question "ob fur eine grosse Bibliothek das Referatsystem eine unabweisbare Notwendigkeit ist, wird auch heute noch nicht allseitig bejaht," and that Pietschmann was against it.

Statistics on the use of books give I4,000 as the number used at home in I806-7 as against 25,7I8 used at home and 40,000 (estimated) used in Biucher- sale in I875. The successful development of the interlibrary loan system in Germany, and G6ttingen's share in it, are indicated by the number of G6t- tingen's loans (2,298) as early as 1875. Goethe supplies a good example of the gratitude of many famous visiting scholars-also of their troublesome- ness, for, apropos of him, Heyne said to Herder, "Die Herren machen es immer wie Pharao; man soll den Traum nicht nur auslegen, sondern auch errathen, was man getriumt hat." An inventory of I845 resulted happily in finding on the shelves many books reported missing in the previous inventory (fifty years before).

The account of the library building with all its additions and changes needs to be studied on the spot to be thoroughly and easily intelligible, in spite of the fifteen excellent plates. American librarians crowded by their own card catalogs will be interested to read of the same situation arising from the addi- tions to the catalog in book form. Also of interest, incidentally, is the failure of the card catalog to gain approval at Gottingen not even the approval of Dziatzko, who had installed one at Breslau.

However interesting all such details of growth and administration are in their unfamiliarity, or however comforting and entertaining in their famil- iarity, the reviewer most enjoyed the biographical element. Personalities come to life again in this narrative of their careers within the library and outside it. Their services to G6ttingen are well appraised, but one would have liked more detail regarding their contributions to library work and to learning in general. Of Gesner (Professor der Eloquenz und Poesie und "nebenher" Leiter der Bibliothek, 1734-6i) it is perhaps enough to know that he was "einer der Begriinder des Neuhumanismus ... . Sein Thesaurus linguae et eruditionis Romanae geh6rt heute noch zu den benutzten Nachschlagewerken" (though the reviewer must confess he has never used it), and that his Wie ein Bibliothe- carius beschaffen seyn miisse (quoted on pp. 244 ff.) is still worth any librar- ians' reading (see also p. 39). As for Heyne (librarian 1763-i8I2), one could hardly expect a full bibliography of his "7-8000 Rezensionen" of classical authors, but of Michaelis the biblical and oriental scholar one would like to hear more (even though it appears that the less said the better of his interim conduct of the library, 176i-63). Reuss (ranking librarian, I812-37, but on

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I46 THE LIBRARY QUARTERLY

the staff from I783) deserved a fuller list of his bibliographical works, even though he is now known chiefly by his Repertorium der Gesellschaftschriften. Benecke (i837-44) was "der letzte .... und .... vornehmster Reprisentant angesehene Gottinger Bibliothekar" of the Heyne tradition, but not enough is told us of his editions of old German poetry ("die ersten wissenschaftlichen iuberhaupt"-Allegemeine deutsche Biographie).

Gesner had protested that his idea of a professor bibliothecarius was "nicht aber ein Mann, der bey seiner ungemessenen Dienstfertigkeit .... die Biblio- thek viel weniger als einer seiner Collegen geniessen konne"; and Heyne on one occasion complained, "Was jetzt vom verlangt Bibliothekar wiirde, be- wirke, dass er aufh6re, ein Gelehrter zu sein." Hoeck, on the other hand, accepted the directorship (I844-77) with a specific limitation of his teaching "um desto mehr den Geschaften der Bibliothek sich widmen zu k6nnen." And yet, even though Benecke the professor bibliothecarius has tended to be- come more bibliothecarius than professor, he has continued to be a Gelehrter; Hoeck's works in Greek and Roman history were highly esteemed, and Wil- manns (I875-85), Dziatzko (I886-I903), and Pietschmann (I903-21) lived recently enough so that their works are not yet superseded or forgotten. And not only the chief librarians but many of their subordinates throughout the two centuries are familiar names in the world of scholarship. As Heyne said, "Gelehrte dieser Art .... sind sehr selten; noch seltener diejenigen, welche fahig, geiibt und geneigt sind, den reichen Schatz ihres Gedachtnisses zum .... Dienste anderer anzuwenden."

HENRY BARTLETT VAN HOESEN

Brown University Providence, Rhode Island

Sborn:'k vAnovany oslavi L. 7. Zivn6ho. PRAHA, 1937. PP. 240.

Library progress in Czechoslovakia and the contribution made by L. J. Zivny consitute the theme of this recently distributed volume of essays pre- pared in celebration of the sixtieth birthday of Ladislav Jan Zivny, a promi- nent Czech librarian and bibliographer. Although the Czechoslovak Republic is not yet twenty years old, considerable library progress has been made. On study trips to England many years ago, Zivny had become acquainted with a new conception of the public library. In connection with the adult-educa- tion movement in Bohemia (Austro-Hungarian monarchy), he endeavored to arouse a desire for the widespread development of public libraries. Zivny was the founder of the Bohemian adult education periodical Ceskd osvata.

Soon after the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic, a compulsory public library law was enacted on June 22, I9I9, through the interest of Zivny. Indeed, the part played by him was so considerable that the law might well be called the "Lex Zivny." At the same time the national government

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